Old Whitney Cemetery

(Also Know as Touchstone Cemetery)

Old Whitney is
located in Whitney on HWY 22 and FM 933 by the old rodeo arena. View
Map.
This cemetery of approximately 5 acres was given
to the city of Whitney by a Mr. Touchstone. No information on how many graves
were there nor why the 2 or 3 graves were not moved when the rest were moved to
Whitney Memorial Park. About the '60s most of the land was turned into a rodeo
facility. A small area on the southwest was left and fenced. Highway 22 also
runs across the northwest end. Inside a chained link fence is an area set off by
a pipe fence. Inside the pipe fence is a monument, a rose bush, and a foot
stone. The footstone has the initials JPR . The tombstone is barley legible and
is for a Paschal Hawkins.

A little Tombstone on city property
at the Highway 22 and FM 933 intersection south of Whitney was identified by
Frances Adams of Whitney as being that of one of her mother’s little brothers,
John Presley Riddle, The gravestone and a larger one for Paschal Hawkins are all
that remain of what was purchased by a group of men in 1882 to become a burying
ground for Whitney. Mrs. Adams says another Riddle child is also buried on the
plot of land.

Mystery Gravestone Identified

EDITORS NOTE: After seeing
the article on Whitney’s burying ground in the September issue.
Frances Adams of Whitney came by to provide some information on the
small tombstone which included only the three initials, JPR.

One of two gravestones in the
fenced area on Highway22 next to the old rodeo
grounds is that of John Presley Riddle, who was born Nov. 1, 1897, and
died Dec. 17 of that same year.

The baby and his brother, Blufered Andrew
Riddle, are both buried there, said Frances Adams of Whitney, but only
one of the Riddle markers remains. Her mother, Lillie Estelle Riddle,
was an older sister of the two boys, the children of Ada Matilda and
John Wister Riddle.

Mrs. Adams, formerly Frances Braziel Fugitt,
said her grandfather purchased the land to bury the two babies, (Blufered
Andrew was born in October of 1900 and died in 1901.) She has been told
that her grandfather planted the rose bush which is still growing near
the graves, now enclosed by a metal fence. Her Riddle grandparents and
three other children were buried in DeGraffenreid Cemetery and later
moved to Whitney Memorial Park.

With her mother and husband, Frances used to
keep the two little graves on Highway 22 clean and neat, but her health
has kept her from continuing. She hopes to fix a cement marker of some
type for Blufered’s grave; the one that was on it has been destroyed
or lost through the years.

Frances said the Riddles came to Whitney from
Greenville, South Carolina, about 1894 when her mother was three years
old. Her mother and father, Bob Braziel, are buried in Bethlehem
Cemetery. Braziel was a farmer and carpenter who made caskets before the
Scruggs funeral home came to town.